


It's Just Quiet

by lumateranlibrarian



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: 'cause my girl has got a fantastic origin story and I want to see her deal with it, Angst, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Let Mei confront her backstory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-22
Updated: 2018-11-22
Packaged: 2019-08-27 12:17:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16702411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lumateranlibrarian/pseuds/lumateranlibrarian
Summary: Everyone has their ghosts. Mei-Ling Zhou and Jesse McCree deal with their respective demons surprisingly... similarly.





	It's Just Quiet

It’s just too quiet for Mei-Ling to sleep tonight.

 

She exhales slowly, and squints up at the dark ceiling of her room. Then, she tosses away the covers and reaches for her glasses on the bedside table. She slips on her fuzzy slippers, the only thing she kept from Watchpoint: Antarctica aside from Snowball and her warm winter clothes. And, come to think of it, the earliest version of her ice blaster. That’s somewhere downstairs in a box in her— _ her! _ —labs.

 

Still, thinking about all the things that have changed doesn’t make the loneliness go away. It’s not usually this bad, but…

 

It’s just too quiet for Mei-Ling to sleep tonight.

 

She finishes getting out of bed, and pads over to her dirty laundry hamper for the sweater she was wearing earlier today. There’s a bright, white cartoon kitty face on it, with a pink bow over one ear. It was a birthday present from Hana, a few months back.

 

Tea. Tea would be nice right now. She knows about Hanzo’s secret tea stash in the kitchen, hidden behind one of the spare sinks near the auxiliary oven. She also knows that Hanzo knows she knows, which is why she’s going to partake, because the fact that he hasn’t hidden it again is as good of an invitation as it gets!

 

The hallways that lead through Watchpoint: Gibraltar are dark and silent, except for her softened footsteps on the floor. It doesn’t help drive the ache in her chest away. If anything, it makes it worse. The halls in Antarctica were like this just after she woke up, but before she realized the truth of her time in cryostasis. It was like everything was fine, even though it actually was as far from  _ fine _ as it was possible to be.

 

“Everything is fine  _ now,” _ she reminds herself out loud. Still, she walks a little faster to the kitchens.

 

When she arrives, there is a light on. It shines through the cracks of the large swinging doors to the kitchen. Mei pauses, and looks down at the light that filters through the gap between the floor and the bottom of the door, but there are no shadows moving in the kitchen beyond.

 

That’s strange.

 

She quietly pushes inside.

 

After Winston’s recall, once it became clear that more and more agents were coming back to Overwatch, some of them had changed the layout of the industrial kitchen as best they could without actually ripping any of the plumbing out of the walls. In it’s old days, Watchpoint: Gibraltar had been the base of operations for almost a thousand agents and employees. Now there were less than thirty of them altogether. And so, early on, they had pushed around some shelves, and dragged some old and dusty tables and chairs in from the cafeteria. They had requisitioned bedsheets for tablecloths until they’d driven down into the nearest town for supplies. These days, cooking feels more like the family dinners Mei grew up with. It’s a nice change of pace.

 

The moment she crosses the threshold of the doors, she inhales the scent of coffee and smoke. She understands immediately, and after a beat of indecision decides that company will be good for both of them.

 

“Hello, McCree,” she greets softly as she comes around a wall of unused refrigerators. 

 

McCree leans against a countertop, next to the coffee machine, which is actively burbling away. He is chewing on the end of a lit cigar, and when his eyes meet hers, his smile appears very forced, as does the slow tip of his hat. “Miss Mei.”

 

He looks tired. There are bags under his eyes, and lines on his face that speak of pain. Mei moves past him, and walks over to the cabinet where the kettle is kept. As she prepares to boil water over the stove, neither of them speak. It’s only when she walks over to the auxiliary oven that McCree grunts.

 

“Ain’t that Hanzo’s?”

 

“Yes,” she laughs, and offers no explanation as she returns with a small tin covered in beautiful Japanese calligraphy.

 

McCree watches her measure out from it a small amount of loose, shredded tea leaves into a tea strainer. “Ain’t no one ever told you not to poke at bears?”

 

“Yes, but no one has ever told me not to poke at dragons.”

 

His smile is more genuine now as he mutters, “Touché.”

 

While she waits for the water to boil, she pulls out two ceramic mugs. Mid-motion, she pauses. “But you know about his secret stash, too.”

 

“Not ‘cause I drink the damn stuff. Uh, no offense.”

 

She smiles at her hands.

 

“Naw, sometimes we run into each other down here is all.”

 

She sighs. Everybody has nightmares here, don’t they? She is so  _ tired _ of them.

 

“Tired of what, Mei?”

 

“Oh! I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to say that out loud,” she groans, and rubs at her eyes. “I just, I—”

 

McCree chuckles. “Not a problem. I’ve run my mouth my fair share a times, too. Sure the late hour’s not helpin’ much, either.”

 

Mei snorts, and McCree looks down at her. There’s at least a foot and a half between their heads. “You can say that again.”

 

They lapse into silence. The coffee finishes before the water boils, and McCree fills his cup almost to the brim. His frown returns, and the far away, desolate look in his eyes comes back, too. He pulls something from his back pocket, a flask, out of which he pours a shot of something  _ strong, _ if the sharp smell of alcohol is anything to go by. It sloshes in his mug precariously.

 

She considers her options, and then clears her throat.

 

He gives her a confused look.

 

“I would like some, if that is all right,” she clarifies.

 

“The coffee?” He reaches back towards the coffee machine.

 

“No, that,” she says, and points at the flask. His eyebrows furrow together, and if this were any other time of day, she’d tease him about his hairiness. With a wary look, he extends the flask to her, and when she takes it from him, he opens his mouth.

 

“ ‘S a better idea to sip if you haven’t—”

 

She takes a shot straight from the flask, swallows, and soundlessly makes a face at the burn as the hard liquor goes down. She passes it back to him. The alcohol does warm her up. “Thank you.”

 

He gapes at her. 

 

The kettle whistles, and she returns to the stove to prepare her tea.

 

“Darlin’, you are just full of surprises,” he muses, and she can hear the smile in his voice truly now.

 

She joins him at the nearest table, and tucks her feet up under her as she sits in the chair across from him. “Thank you, McCree.”

 

He chuckles, and tips his hat again. 

 

Watchpoint: Gibraltar is still too quiet tonight, Mei has to admit. But she knows she isn’t alone, and that helps even more than Hanzo’s stolen tea.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I appreciate the love <3


End file.
